The three basic mediums (hardware units) of music: records, tapes, and compact discs, greatly restricts the transferability of music and results in a variety of inefficiencies.
CAPACITY: The individual hardware units as cited above are limited as to the amount of music that can be stored on each.
MATERIALS: The materials used to manufacture the hardware units are subject to damage and deterioration during normal operations, handling, and exposure to the elements.
SIZE: The physical size of the hardware units imposes constraints on the quantity of hardware units which can be housed for playback in confined areas such as in automobiles, boats, planes, etc.
RETRIEVAL: Hardware units limit the ability to play, in a sequence selected by the user, songs from different albums. For example, if the user wants to play one song from ten different albums, the user would spend an inordinate amount of time handling, sorting, and cueing the ten different hardware units.
SALES AND DISTRIBUTION: Prior to final purchase, hardware units need to be physically transferred from the manufacturing facility to the wholesale warehouse to the retail warehouse to the retail outlet, resulting in lengthy lag time between music creation and music marketing, as well as incurring unnecessary and inefficient transfer and handling costs. Additionally, tooling costs required for mass production of the hardware units and the material cost of the hardware units themselves, further drives up the cost of music to the end user.
QUALITY: Until the recent invention of Digital Audio Music, as used on Compact Discs, distortion free transfer from the hardware units to the stereo system was virtually impossible. Digital Audio Music is simply music converted into a very basic computer language known as binary. A series of commands known as zeros or ones encode the music for future playback. Use of laser retrieval of the binary commands results in distortion free transfer of the music from the compact disc to the stereo system. Quality Digital Audio Music is defined as the binary structure of the Digital Audio Music. Conventional analog tape recording of Digital Audio Music is not to be considered quality inasmuch as the binary structure itself is not recorded. While Digital Audio Music on compact discs is a technological breakthrough in audio quality, the method by which the music is sold, distributed, stored, manipulated, retrieved, played and protected from copyright infringements remains as inefficient as with records and tapes.
COPYRIGHT PROTECTION: Since the invention of tape recording devices, strict control and enforcement of copyright laws have proved difficult and impossible with home recorders. Additionally, the recent invention of Digital Audio Tape Recorders now jeopardizes the electronic copyright protection of quality Digital Audio Music on Compact Discs or Digital Audio Tapes. If music exists on hardware units, it can be copied.
Thus, as is apparent from the above discussion, the inflexible form in which the songs are purchased by an end user, and the distribution channels of the songs, requires the end user to go to a location to purchase the songs, and not necessarily be able to purchase only the songs desired to be heard, in a sequence the end user would like to hear them. This is not limited to just songs, but also includes, for example, videos.
Accordingly, it is an objective of this invention is to provide a new and improved methodology/system to electronically sell and distribute Digital Audio Music or digital video.
A further objective of this invention to provide a new and improved methodology/system to electronically store and retrieve Digital Audio Music or digital video.
Another objective of this invention is to provide a new and improved methodology/system to electronically manipulate, i.e., sort, cue, and select, Digital Audio Music or digital video for playback.
Still another objective of this invention is to offer a new and improved methodology/system which can prevent unauthorized electronic copying of quality Digital Audio Music or digital video.